CHAPTER XIII

HOSTILITIES BEGIN

During Mallory's absence, Marjorie had met with a little adventure of her own. Ira Lathrop finished his re-encounter with Anne Gattle shortly after Mallory set out stalking clergymen. In the mingled confusion of finding his one romantic flame still glowing on a vestal altar, and of shocking her with an escape of profanity, he backed away from her presence, and sank into his own berth.

He realized that he was not alone. Somebody was alongside. He turned to find the great tear-sprent eyes of Marjorie staring at him. He rose with a recrudescence of his woman-hating wrath, and dashing up the aisle, found the porter just returning from the baggage car. He seized the black factotum and growled:

"Say, porter, there's a woman in my berth."

The porter chuckled, incredulous:

"Woman in yo' berth!"

"Yes--get her out."

"Yassah," the porter nodded, and advanced on Marjorie with a gentle, "'Scuse me, missus--ye' berth is numba one."

"I don't care," snapped Marjorie, "I won't take it."

"But this un belongs to that gentleman."

"He can have mine--ours--Mr. Mallory's," cried Marjorie, pointing to the white-ribboned tent in the farther end of the car. Then she gripped the arms of the seat, as if defying eviction. The porter stared at her in helpless chagrin. Then he shuffled back and murmured: "I reckon you'd betta put her out."

Lathrop withered the coward with one contemptuous look, and strode down the aisle with a determined grimness. He took his ticket from his pocket as a clinching proof of his title, and thrust it out at Marjorie. She gave it one indifferent glance, and then her eyes and mouth puckered, as if she had munched a green persimmon, and a long low wail like a distant engine-whistle, stole from her lips. Ira Lathrop stared at her in blank wrath, doddered irresolutely, and roared:

"Agh, let her have it!"

The porter smiled triumphantly, and said: "She says you kin have her berth." He pointed at the bridal arbor. Lathrop almost exploded at the idea.

Now he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see Little Jimmie Wellington emerging from his berth with an enormous smile:

"Say, Pop, have you seen lovely rice-trap? Stick around till she flops."

But Lathrop flung away to the smoking room. Little Jimmie turned to the jovial negro:

"Porter, porter."

"I'm right by you."

"What time d'you say we get to Reno?"

"Mawnin' of the fo'th day, sah."

"Well, call me just before we roll in."

And he rolled in. His last words floated down the aisle and met Mrs. Little Jimmie Wellington just returning from the Women's Room, where she had sought nepenthe in more than one of her exquisite little cigars. The familiar voice, familiarly bibulous, smote her ear with amazement. She beckoned the porter to her anxiously.

"Porter! Porter! Do you know the name of the man who just hurried in?"

"No'm," said the porter. "I reckon he's so broken up he ain't got any name left."

"It couldn't be," Mrs. Jimmie mused.

"Things can be sometimes," said the porter.

"You may make up my berth now," said Mrs. Wellington, forgetting that Anne Gattle was still there. Mrs. Wellington hastened to apologize, and begged her to stay, but the spinster wanted to be far away from the disturbing atmosphere of divorce. She was dreaming already with her eyes open, and she sank into number six in a lotus-eater's reverie.

Mrs. Wellington gathered certain things together and took up her handbag, to return to the Women's Room, just as Mrs. Whitcomb came forth from the curtains of her own berth, where she had made certain preliminaries to disrobing, and put on a light, decidedly negligée negligée.

The two women collided in the aisle, whirled on one another, as women do when they jostle, recognized each other with wild stares of amazement, set their teeth, and made a simultaneous dash along the corridor, shoulder wrestling with shoulder. They reached the door marked "Women" at the same instant, and as neither would have dreamed of offering the other a courtesy, they squeezed through together in a Kilkenny jumble.